Allentown school plan reactions

SOUNDING BOARD

TODAY'S TOPIC: The Allentown School Board last week approved Superintendent Gerald Zahorchak's plan to lay off 247 teachers and support staff and cut honors and other high school classes plus offerings in lower grades. The plan to improve education in the district comes during sharp cuts in state funds for public education. The Morning Call presents reaction to the plan and to the education funding crisis.

Decisions could prompt exodus from Allentown

The superintendent of the Allentown School District does have a difficult job. However, his plan to dismantle the strong curriculum of the high school is the wrong way to go. Having a strong honors program with a variety of courses is necessary to keep the academic students in the district. Gutting this program sends a message to the parents of the students that quality education is no longer a high priority. If these families bolt the district, Allentown will never recover educationally wise.

A few years ago I worked in a volunteer program in an Allentown elementary school. I have been involved in education since 1969. Since I retired a few years ago, I still am highly involved in school programs. I spoke to a parent, whose child had told me that they might move. When queried about this, the parent felt that her daughter would get a good education in Allentown. I wonder what that parent is thinking now. There are so many fine districts not too far away.

I predict that there might be an exodus by the parents of students who have succeeded in Allentown. In my experience, once parents pull out of a community because of a loss of confidence in the schools, the school system will fail.

-- Paul Jayson, Palmer Township

'Disgrace' to Allentown

The Allentown School Board has made it sound like the teachers were unwilling to make concessions; this is untrue. The board wanted the teachers to take a pay freeze. Teachers were willing if they would not lose their jobs, but the board was not willing to agree. So if the teachers had most likely agreed to a pay freeze, they still would have lost jobs anyway.

Second, no administrators are losing jobs, and many will still be earning more than $100,000 a year. Elementary students who have a hard enough time with reading will lose their library teachers except for only nine weeks out of the school year. The district has spent millions of dollars on buildings. This superintendent is not from Allentown and has no investment in this city other than a paycheck. I have lived here for 42 out of my 45 years, and this is a disgrace.

-- Jonathan Kopishke, Allentown

Taxpayers held hostage

Regarding the recent proposed financial cuts to the state public education system resulting in potential teacher cutbacks and more accountability of existing taxpayer funds: It should come as no surprise to anyone who thinks rationally that the system has the misconception that it can tap the taxpayer well without inevitable consequences. For too long, the education system, with its automatic high-power salaries and benefits, has been and is now unsustainable and on an imminent path to taxpayer collapse. For years we have been told that the answer is more money to solve the problem, and if teachers don't get what they want, threats of striking inevitably give them what they demand. The ordinary citizen is left in the dust with no recourse. More is never enough. It doesn't take a degree in education to see that it is not a viable solution to this monstrous situation. Thank goodness there are still the ranks of dissenting, reasonable-thinking citizens who are trying to correct the grave injustice of holding the ordinary working and retired taxpayer hostage. By the way, I am a Democrat, so it cannot be said that I am currently politically biased.

-- Francis Staffieri, Salisbury Township

Perplexed by board's rubber-stamp decision

After reading and hearing news of the Allentown School Board's decision to rubber-stamp the superintendent's vision of staff and class cuts, I will now consider moving from the city. It's outrageous to hear the board and administration tell the public that communication was faulty. They should excel at communication with the public. Since more than 200 jobs will be cut, perhaps all the teachers and support staff who have sick and personal days remaining should consider using the days together in a united effort to show the administration and board just how difficult it will be without those positions. Since there will be no administrative cuts, they should be called as substitutes for the 247 absences.

With less staff and fewer classes, the administrators should have plenty of extra time to help in the classroom. I do not understand how the board can unanimously vote for the superintendent and against the public who showed such a strong and determined effort against this vision. When is the next school board election and when does Gerald Zahorchak's contract end? Will it be too late by then?